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Posted: 5/9/2001 4:58:37 AM EDT
[#1]
geoff,
i wasnt in Nam (too young you see..) but have a few friends that were. i remember a friend from WA state telling me stories about his (mis)adventures there. they fired the way they did because they were young, terrified to die and just wanted to send lead down the enemy's way. they would raise the rifle over their heads, while kneeling, standing, or sitting behind anything that will protect them from incoming rounds as they go full auto on the NVA. this account of course is paraphrased from his own words. whatever the reason was, the men/boys we sent over there are all heroes in my book. |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 5:26:02 AM EDT
[#2]
Hence, "spray and pray"? Thank god I was not a grunt...choppers were not that much better, life span was two weeks for a door gunner. My son in law completed basic a few months ago...they are not allowed to adjust their own sights! The sarge does it for them! (wonder what happens after they poop?)
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Posted: 5/9/2001 5:31:29 AM EDT
[#3]
Those were reinactments. Playing to the camera.
Do realy think a camera man would just be standing there, filming from the side in a real fire fight. If he were just filming my squad while someone was tring to kill me I would kick his ass and fix him up with a weapon to help me out. |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 5:39:00 AM EDT
[#4]
Maybe they were laying down cover fire.
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Posted: 5/9/2001 6:04:01 AM EDT
[#5]
There is a point where keeping a 16 aimed is rather difficult on F/A and a transition to watching where your bullets strike and walking them becomes easier, also is the question of dust being kicked up and darkness obscuring your vision through the ghost ring. Then point shooting becomes the norm. Everyone starts off with a proper sight picture but quickly goes to walking when they lose the front sight and more ammo MUST be put down range.
Also is covering fire where there is no targets visible and you are trying to keep heads down while an Immediate Action drill is performed. I use point shooting in IPSC events when the targets are close and time is ticking away. Also try to keep a cool head while fast hot projectiles are skipping all around you, you will close your eyes and fire out of fear and/or debris being kicked in your eyes. No safety glasses on a battle field. No hearing protection and more noise than most of you thought possible. All these things break you concentraion and makes you rely on training, not concious thought. Aimed fire has its place and is used but thats another topic |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 6:12:53 AM EDT
[#6]
Probably just trying to lay down some covering fire.
But I will add that at short engagement distances, point shooting CAN be effective for taking down targets; but only if you've practiced it and taken the time to develop some proficiency at it. Every month or so I shoot a SMG match where usually one stage of the match, either stationary or walking/running through a free fire zone, tests your point shoot ability. Distances are usually 10-15 yards. You don't have to pop A-zones on MilParks; pepper poppers are the usualy fare with a no-shoot or two mixed in, but if you can knock down a popper at 10-15 yards, you could probably nail a live target. [img]http://wsphotofews.excite.com/015/2y/qu/dU/l845276.jpg[/img] |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 6:19:55 AM EDT
[#7]
The Marine Corp is pretty much the only branch of the service that still teaches recruits to shoot well.
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Posted: 5/9/2001 6:27:06 AM EDT
[#8]
Quoted: There is a point where keeping a 16 aimed is rather difficult on F/A and a transition to watching where your bullets strike and walking them becomes easier, also is the question of dust being kicked up and darkness obscuring your vision through the ghost ring. Then point shooting becomes the norm. Everyone starts off with a proper sight picture but quickly goes to walking when they lose the front sight and more ammo MUST be put down range. Also is covering fire where there is no targets visible and you are trying to keep heads down while an Immediate Action drill is performed. I use point shooting in IPSC events when the targets are close and time is ticking away. Also try to keep a cool head while fast hot projectiles are skipping all around you, you will close your eyes and fire out of fear and/or debris being kicked in your eyes. No safety glasses on a battle field. No hearing protection and more noise than most of you thought possible. All these things break you concentraion and makes you rely on training, not concious thought. Aimed fire has its place and is used but thats another topic Damn, Rich314--being a non Veteran I can't even imagine the "pucker factor" involved in this type of thing. That is why I so strongly agree with the last sentence of Redray's post: whatever the reason was, the men/boys we sent over there are all heroes in my book. Thank you, thank you, Veterans for your service. |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 8:33:50 AM EDT
[#9]
Quoted: The Marine Corp is pretty much the only branch of the service that still teaches recruits to shoot well. When I was in the Army light infantry, we didn't let our riflemen off the shooting range until they all shot expert. |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 8:41:38 AM EDT
[#10]
Quoted: Quoted: The Marine Corp is pretty much the only branch of the service that still teaches recruits to shoot well. When I was in the Army light infantry, we didn't let our riflemen off the shooting range until they all shot expert. I will second that. Marine corps may be able to shoot a big black circle target at 500 meters from prone, however an 18" wide dark green pop-up target at 300 meters that blends in with the background and only stays up for a few seconds is MUCH better training IMO. In real life situations the target does not stay still for very long, does not have a white background, and you WILL have to aquire it or multiple targets. That makes Army training MUCH better if you ask me. |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 8:43:19 AM EDT
[#11]
I am not sure but i do believe that is why they have switched the assult rifles to 3 round bursts rather than fully auto all of the time. I dont remember the actual numbers anymore but a stat. showed it was takeing like 1000's of rounds to kill ONE vietnamese(excuse my spelling). As to Halfcocked's remark of beating the cammera man, there is real live film of fighting in Nam and I don,t think the camera guys all got there asses kicked.
[sniper] |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 8:47:25 AM EDT
[#12]
Quoted:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quoted: The Marine Corp is pretty much the only branch of the service that still teaches recruits to shoot well. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When I was in the Army light infantry, we didn't let our riflemen off the shooting range until they all shot expert. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I will second that. Marine corps may be able to shoot a big black circle target at 500 meters from prone, however an 18" wide dark green pop-up target at 300 meters that blends in with the background and only stays up for a few seconds is MUCH better training IMO. In real life situations the target does not stay still for very long, does not have a white background, and you WILL have to aquire it or multiple targets. That makes Army training MUCH better if you ask me. I am not sure you can say that the army training is any better than the marines. They are both trained to do a differant job. You cant say that a guy formthe navy was better trained than a guy from the airforce just because of the branch. They are seperate fields. They train you for your job on the field. [sniper] |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 8:51:38 AM EDT
[#13]
The Marine Corps shoots popup 3D man-sized targets in a field from 25 to 500 meters. They popup, move, drop down.
I've shot the course, it's challenging, especially when the grass is getting long. |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 9:05:22 AM EDT
[#14]
Quoted: I dont remember the actual numbers anymore but a stat. showed it was takeing like 1000's of rounds to kill ONE vietnamese(excuse my spelling). [sniper] Last year in a history course I heard that stat was 85,000 rounds to kill one Vietnamese. |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 9:23:33 AM EDT
[#15]
Carlos Hathcock 93 confirmed kills. Thats 93 shots, 93 Nathaniel Victors KIA. Tell that to your "Teacher".
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Posted: 5/9/2001 9:31:38 AM EDT
[#16]
Lots of us who do know how to shoot well might tend to spray lead like that when under real combat conditions. And chances are, the enemy is doing the same thing. That is probably why a few extraordinary men like the famed Sgt. York of WW1 are able to be so effective in combat. Perhaps they expose themselves to a bit more risk than average, or are a little luckier, or a little more skilled, but mainly they just keep their cool where everybody else is freaking out.
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Posted: 5/9/2001 9:34:50 AM EDT
[#17]
geoff: if someone was 50ft. away shooting at you, would you use your sights?
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Posted: 5/9/2001 10:14:31 AM EDT
[#18]
When I was in and shooting a lot, I knew where my rifle was shooting just by the way I was holding it. Not accurate enough for 200-300m, but out to about 200m, you were going to get hit.
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Posted: 5/9/2001 10:28:07 AM EDT
[#19]
Originally Posted By SILVER SURFER: if someone was 50ft. away shooting at you, would you use your sights? Yes, at least get a flash sight picture and make sure the front sight post is on target. BTW: 50ft = 16.6 yards. |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 10:40:51 AM EDT
[#20]
I was not there either but their was a termendious lack of fire discipline except in the elite groups. Thats why there were around 50,000 rounds fired per confirmed VC or NVA kill. [kill]
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Posted: 5/9/2001 10:44:14 AM EDT
[#21]
Originally Posted By uncle buck: Carlos Hathcock 93 confirmed kills. Thats 93 shots, 93 Nathaniel Victors KIA. Tell that to your "Teacher". Actually the top sniper in Nam was an army sniper, I will look for a dat point to show the CK of snipers in Nam. I`ll post it later. As for who has better marksmen, the marines have always placed a higher priority on marksmanship than the Army but Army S/S are very well trained as is many of their specop types. The Army guys are better looking than the marines.[;)] |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 11:37:05 AM EDT
[#22]
I think the show in question related to LRRP's in Vietnam.
The footage they showed was likely either training or reinactments, but the troops in question were clearly spraying and praying. They were shooting from the prone into pretty thick jungle but it seemed they were attempting to get some sort of grazing fire. Seemed pretty inefficient, but it would help deny that particular avenue of advance. |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 12:40:31 PM EDT
[#23]
In any matter. i think they should have napalmed the whole place and got it done with. i thought you went into war to win, not piss around.
[sniper] |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 12:56:42 PM EDT
[#24]
Maybe they used it to just keep them enemy away? With a lot of fire the enemy had no idea of how many men there were?
And yes I was watching th special ops program on the LRRPs/Rangers. |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 2:08:19 PM EDT
[#25]
You knew they were in the bushes. You could see the smoke and flash...sometimes. If that was all you could see, you fired at the smoke or the flash BECAUSE they were firing at you. It's not brain surgery! Somebody had to holding on to those weapons.
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Posted: 5/9/2001 2:16:34 PM EDT
[#26]
Uncle Buck- Here`s the info on top sniper CK in Nam.
[url]http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?id=21315#lastPost[/url] |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 2:23:54 PM EDT
[#27]
I didn't serve in Viet Nam , but I served with a lot of guys just back from their Tour. 18 year old PFC's, 19 yr. old Spec4's, 20 yr. old Sgt's. I bet they did a lot of " Spray and Pray " |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 2:41:45 PM EDT
[#28]
I hope no one has posted this yet as I didn't read all of them but we also did a thing called "quick kill". They found out in the nam that our guys would try to stop and line up their sights when some vc would pop up out of a spider hole or suprise them in some way. With "quick kill" you just fired while looking at the target. It was pretty cool as you can really do well with just a little practice. I know some of the guys used bb guns stateside to learn this technique. The would take bb guns and another soldier would throw up an object about the size of a dinner plate they'd shoot that for awhile then move to something smaller. I know this sounds like bs but almost all got to where they could hit a quarter size disk most every time. Someone out there probably has more info on this than I do.
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Posted: 5/9/2001 3:40:17 PM EDT
[#29]
I also watched the program on LRRP's. I saw the footage and in some scenes they were just sending rounds into the dense jungle. This could be to clear a suspected enemy position in the bush, so they can get back to the LZ or perhaps they saw the flash of an AK47. I agree with halfcocked: It could also be staged for the camera. I do question the fact that this was caught on film. We are talking about highly trained men who routinely went on dangerous missions deep into enemy teritorry. These Recon squads were trained to be silent and invisible. I can't imagine any Recon squad willingly going on a combat mission behind enemy lines with a clumsy camera man following along. That would go against all the principles of Recon, unless of course the camera operator was one of the Recon squad.
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Posted: 5/9/2001 4:37:42 PM EDT
[#30]
Technical term is suppressive fire, to wit: Keep the other guy's head down while continuing with your mission
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Posted: 5/9/2001 5:17:13 PM EDT
[#31]
Quoted: When I was in the Army light infantry, we didn't let our riflemen off the shooting range until they all shot expert. WOW!! what a feat!! scoring an expert by shooting at pop ups from 0 to 300 yards (how do you "NOT" shoot expert??). The Corps is the only service that instills taking full advantage of a weapon systems full capability and shooting it out to it's max effective range. I.E. Max effective range of the M-16 A2 sevice rifle is 550 meters for a point target. Funny...the KD course in the Corps has a 500 yard line and yes you shoot at a man size target with iron sights. The Corps puts out the best shooters in the military hands down. The key is that they instill discipline in the Marine and confidence in the gear that they use. Semper-Fi and hooah for all you Army dogs...I like you guys too even though you are a bunch of non-shooting fucks. (Just kidding)[x] O3 out!! [sniper] |
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Posted: 5/9/2001 9:59:46 PM EDT
[#32]
Well hell, I was going to bypass this thread, but O3, anytime you can get to Colorado or close enough to meet, 500 yards with what ever you like. You win, I buy, I win, you buy.
Rew |
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Posted: 5/10/2001 1:19:06 AM EDT
[#33]
2 things:
1) Do Marines still shoot with shooting jackets, etc? That always struck me as a bit much. I agree, though, that the Army qualification course is too easy - and without a KD range you really can't train / assess a shooter. CDRs keep them on the range until they get lucky or (what usually happens) someone cheats. All too often, units qualify on 25 meter paper targets. The army just does not emphasize small arms shooting like it does the big guns. It is an afterthought and a BS statistic. A "qualified' soldier need not know how to load, clear, or properly carry his weapon - he only need shoot just over half of a man sized target, many that are up for over 15 seconds and close enough to hit with rocks. 2) If the TV show was about recon troops - their mission is not to attack. If they were shooting, it was likely as part of a break contact drill - in which case suppressive fire in the general direction of the enemy is the standard. A lack of "aimed fire" on both sides is precisely why numerous bravery citations talk about people moving heroically under intense fire without taking hits. |
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Posted: 5/10/2001 3:31:04 AM EDT
[#34]
Quoted: Well hell, I was going to bypass this thread, but O3, anytime you can get to Colorado or close enough to meet, 500 yards with what ever you like. You win, I buy, I win, you buy. Rew Sounds like a plan...If I ever get out that way I'll take you up on that offer. I'll bring my AR-10T with the lothar walthar barrel and Springfield 3rd Gen Scope. Unless your sporting an HK PSG-1 and actually know how to shoot, you better start stocking your fridge with Guinness or Killians buddy. By the way, what's your claim to fame and reason for posting. Former Marine?? Army dog?? Take it light man...03 out. [sniper] |
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